


Day 13. Cruel

by Munnin



Series: Fictober [13]
Category: Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Bigotry & Prejudice, removal of children from indigenous peoples, themes of kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 23:15:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16274378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Munnin/pseuds/Munnin
Summary: The past never leaves us and the truth is rarely as simple as we wish it to be.





	Day 13. Cruel

I felt my master’s presence before she opened the door to the High Council chamber. She felt tired, and more than a little anxious. 

Before she could open the door, I dropped to one knee, my head lowered. “Master.” 

I had come with a degree of antagonistic intent but I never wanted to hurt her. Master Ralin had been the one stable force in my life. The cruelty of what had been kept from me was not her choice. I was sure of that now. 

I felt her heart rate rise, her breathing quicken as she saw me. In a few swift steps she closed the space between us, resting her hands on my shoulders. “Padawan.”

I raised my head and, in that moment, I saw myself through her eyes. No longer a boy, but a man. I had grown greatly in the year we’d been apart. Grown and changed.

I stood as she motioned me up. I was taller than her by a head now, my skin toned dark red and my hair hanging down my back in beaded dreadlocks. Tunicless in tabard and obi, my star shaped scar clearly visible but it was no longer alone. Lines of raised scarification followed down my sternum and I wore them proudly. 

“Cin?” Her voice broke softly, betraying the emotion she was trying to contain. “Cin Vhetin. You’ve come home to us.”

“No.” I answered softly. “That’s not my name. Not anymore.”

A master I didn’t know helped Master Ralin to a seat as I turned to address the council. 

“I have returned to the Jedi Temple but not as Padawan Cin Vhetin. I claim by right the name of my people. I am Djarrah of Iron Trees.”

“A welcome sight, you are. Djarrah of Iron Trees.” Master Yoda intoned, accepting this without argument, “To look on you again, we did not expect.”

“Indeed.” Master Windu seemed less impressed, leaning back in his seat and eyeing me doubtfully. “We did not. After the attack on the Obdurance, it was believed you’d been killed.”

“I very nearly was.” I held my chin high, refusing to allow Master Windu’s suspicious tone get to me. “My hyperspace-ring was damaged, it malfunctioned shortly after I jumped. My ship was flung from hyperspace. Guided by the Force, I crash landed in the one place I needed to be. My home world.”

“It was my understanding,” Depa Billaba intoned softly, “that Padawan-” she caught herself before she used my old name, “that Djarrah’s origins were unknown.”

“It is true, unknown the world’s name is.” Yoda agreed, “But Djarrah’s origins, unknown they are not.”

Good. The Council had finally come to the point I needed. The answers I needed. And I would not be denied this time.

“The Iron Tree people have stories of how I came to leave my world. But I have come before you today to ask- no, to demand the Jedi Order make account of their actions. For their part in my abduction from my people.”

There was a stony silence and I felt a wave of guilt mingle with indignation. 

It was Madam Jocasta who broke that silence. “The young man has the right to know. It has been kept from him long enough.”

Standing behind the circle of chairs, the Chief Librarian no longer held a seat on the Council but I suspected she had been asked here to witness this, just as Master Ralin had.

It dawned on me then that at least some members of the Council had foreseen this day, this conversation. That the secrets long hidden would someday need to be brought to light.

Master Ralin rose. “Then I should be the one to tell him.” She gestured me to follow, to walk me to some private place. 

But I held my ground. “No, Master. This secret has been kept long enough. It needs to be spoken openly. For everyone to hear.” They all already knew. I had suspected that for a long time. What I needed was to see their faces. To feel their emotions. And to know they felt mine.

Master Ralin sighed and sat down a little heavily, gathering herself before she spoke. “Nineteen years ago, the ship of the well-respected Jedi anthropologist Shad’len Dupont was found drifting on the edges of wild space. Shad’len was dead, having bled out from numerous wounds. Clutched in his arms was a newborn boy child. A child with a single wound to his chest. It was believed Shad’len had used what energy he had left to staunch the bleeding and save the child.”

She leaned back in her seat. The effort of telling the story seemed to drain her. “The ship’s navi-computer was badly damaged. No data could be recovered that would point to the child’s world of origin. Nor was there any record of what had passed, although many theories arose.”

“There was… much debate regarding the child and what should be done for him. Shad’len Dupiont had given his life to save the child for a reason. And the boy showed great force potential, even for one so young. The child was brought here to the temple. It was agreed that he would be raised by the Order. And that he- you-” She lifted her eyes to look at me, “would not be told how you came to Coruscant.”

I tasted copper, the inside of my mouth, bleeding as I bit down to keep from interrupting. From demanding why this had been kept from me, taken from me. All those years of being historyless, a white field. Cin vhetin.

I could have borne it, could have calmed my own storm, if Mace Windu had not spoken up. 

“They tried to kill you. The people you were rescused from. Because you would grow into a force adept.” He stated, with a callousness that ripped across my nerves like a sabre strike. “We protected you from that. From them.”

My nails cut my palms, the blood wet and hot as it welled. I’d left both my spear and sabre by the door, laying down my weapons in ritual respect. But now they rattled, drawn by the fire in my heart. 

“My people,” I growled between clenched teeth, touching the star-shaped scar on my chest “struck this blow to kill me. Because I was a force adept, yes. But not out of fear or hate. They struck this blow out of love. Something a Jedi like you would never understand.”

“This scar was made by a spear tipped by kyber.” I opened my fist and felt my own spear fly to me. My hand closed around the shaft, an extension of my body. The crystal hummed and sang, resonating with my anger. “Thrown by my own father.” 

“I come from a people at one with the Force. A people who do not fear it, do not divide it into to light and dark. I come from a people for whom the land and the Force are one. I come from a people who would kill a child to spare it the torture of being ripped from that land by the hands of strangers. Because death was less cruel then being ripped from one’s home and family.” 

I turned slowly, looking into the face of each and every master. Letting them see me, letting them feel the weight of what they had done. What they had allowed. Out of complacency, out of arrogance, out of the belief they knew better.

“My people live simply, in harmony with the land. They have no need of interstellar travel. They had never seen a starship before your anthropologist came. But they understand the Force in ways I doubt this Order ever will. But all the _well-respected_ Shad’len Dupont saw were _primitives_ and _savages_.” I spat the words at Master Windu.

“Stow the attitude, padawan.” Windu answered with a growl. “I came from a tribal world too. Don’t think this Order looks down on nomadic cultures.”

“Were your people given a choice to give you up to the Order?” I demanded, feeling the tip of my spear lower towards him. “Because mine were not. My mother refused to let Shad’len Dupiont take me. When he wouldn’t stop hounding her, the Iron Trees tribe ran him off their land. That night she was found dead, gutted by a sabre. My people chased the fleeing Shad’len Dupiont back to his ship. When he refused to give me back, my father threw the spear that gave me this scar. So I would not suffer at the hands of the man who murdered my mother.”

I struck the butt on my spear on the polished floor, the crystal singing the truth of my words. “I wasn’t given to the Order to be raised a Jedi, I was _taken_.”

The room shuddered with muttered sounds of displeasure, of anger and disbelief. 

“So deep is the distrust the Jedi sowed on my world, my people have passed down the tale of the Sky Thief, the Taker of Children. When they saw my ship crash, their warriors came out in force to meet me, to prevent it happening again. This is the Order’s legacy.” 

Master Yoda raised his hand for silence, trying to stem the swirl of hurt and recrimination that filled the chamber. “Known to us, this was not. Great shame on the Order, it brings.”

Yoda got up from his chair and paced, leaning heavily on his cane. A sign of how troubled he felt. “Deliberate on this, the Council must.” He let out a slow sigh. “But the future we must see to also. What would Djarrah of Iron Trees of this Council ask?”

“Stop it from happening again.” I answered. “Let no child suffer as I suffered. That is all I ask.” 

I felt more than saw the assembled masters nod. 

“You ask nothing for yourself?” Ki-Adi-Mundi asked. 

I didn’t have an answer to that and that surprised me. If I’d read Master Mundi intention right, he was asking what recompense I wanted for, for what was done to me. 

“The truth was all I wanted.” I sounded lost and I knew it. “To have it spoke out loud. For the Council to know what had been done in the Order’s name.” I trailed off, not sure what else to say.

Ever practical, it was Madam Jocasta who again broke the awkward silence. “Do you wish to return to the order? Complete your training?”

“Yes.” I answered before I’d even thought about it. 

Because I _did._ I still want to be a Jedi. Even after all I’d seen of the Order’s flaws. And for the first time in my life I was sure it was what _I_ wanted. 

Not because of the indoctrination of my youth. Not for the fear of failure. 

I wanted to be a Jedi. For all the Order had taken from me, it too was part of who I am.

The elders of my world had taught me many things about myself during my first awakening journey. One of them was that I was most alive when moving, when in action. 

The war was raging. And I needed to be a part of it. Not only for the Republic’s sake, but for my own world. Even a world as distant as mine would never be safe forever. 

As a warrior of the Iron Trees, I could fight for my lands. But as a general of the Republic, I could do more.

And there were worlds other than my own. Yes, I wanted to be a Jedi. 

With all the self-control I could muster, I lowered my eyes respectfully. “If the Council will permit, I wish to complete my training and face my trials.”

Master Yoda looked around, gathering the assent of the council members. “Return to your training, you shall. When ready your master deems you, face your trials you will.”

I bowed, understanding that as a dismissal. But then a thought occurred to me and I straightened. “I ask one caveat.” I could feel Master Windu’s ire rise. “I must be permitted to return to my home world regularly.”

“As your duties permit, you mean.” Windu demanded, his voice as edged as a vibro-blade. 

“No, I mean regularly. All my life I have suffered from a mystery illness the temple healers called my _Tribulation_. Every three years. That is the cycle in which my people experience an awakening. When they are most one with the Force. During that time, they journey and grow, strengthening their bond to the land and to each other.

Here, I was not able to journey and my awakening was mistaken for sickness. I was removed to the deepest parts of the Temple to keep from troubling others. I was plunged into bathes of ice to douse the flame that would have fuelled my growth. Instead of insight, I was subjected to the tearing apart of my spirit as I was bound, trapped from searching for that which would have made me whole.

That cannot be permitted to continue. For my health and growth, both physically and spiritually, I will return to my people every three years.” I cocked my head at Master Windu. “And as often outside that time as my duties permit.”

I didn’t add that I intended to keep training in the Force arts of the Iron Tree people. Or to seek out other people from my world to learn from. From the day I had fashioned my own kyber spear, I knew I would never view the Force in the black and white terms of the Jedi again. 

“For your health, this caveat is granted.” Master Yoda answered, without turning to consult the other council members. “For now, rest you shall. And with your master speak. Much to say to each other, have you both.”

I bowed low, offering my arm to Master Ralin as she stood. 

Leaving the Council chambers behind we walked together to the sunlight gardens. Master Yoda was right, we had a lot to catch up on.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Josh for being my beta and to Jess for being my sounding board.


End file.
